The guard woke them early — the door unlocked, he jerked his head in the direction of the staircase, face expressionless. Ian nodded, pressed one last kiss to the side of Cora’s head, pulled his clothes on quickly and stole out of the cell and into the darkness. It wouldn’t do for the Inquisitors to discover her in the arms of her lover, she thought begrudgingly, but the bed was cold without him and she felt very small and lost and alone. The guard must have had advance warning of the Inquisitors’ schedules, because it wasn’t long before both men came down and stood outside the bars of her cell, staring her down. She met their gazes, defiant.

“You will be subject to the Trial by Depths,” intoned the first man, in the kind of voice that suggested he had made this dark little speech before. “Your hands will be bound and your body cast into the waters. A witch floats, due to the dark forces within her. If you are seen to float, then the sentence is death. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. So it is written, so will it be done.”

“Great,” Cora muttered under her breath once the men were out of earshot.

Though she couldn’t be sure, she thought she saw the guard’s lips twitch in something like a smile before his usual mask of disinterest was restored.

It was the guard who led her out of her cell and up the stairs, eventually. He was gentle with her — held her by the arm and didn’t feel the need to yank her around. She wished that she knew his name. Any small shred of kindness was magnified by how hideously she was being treated. It hadn’t quite sunk in yet that she was going to die, Cora suspected — she was walking through the world numb, still in denial, still not quite grasping what was about to happen to her.

I guess you have a choice, Cora, came the nasty little voice in the back of her head. Either drown or burn. What’s it going to be?

Well, it was a freezing cold morning and no mistake. The sky was grey and overcast, even though the placement of the blurred disc of the sun in the sky indicated that it was mid-morning. A light drizzle of rain began to fall almost on cue, wetting her hair and making her shiver. Well, wonderful. The last day she was going to be alive, most likely, and the weather was awful. Would it be worse to die on a beautiful day? At least this was something she wouldn’t miss.

It was seeing Audrina that really brought home what was happening. Her friend was standing by the lake, hair pulled back in a fierce bun, her eyes full of tears. When Cora appeared, Audrina ran forward to embrace her, uttering a loud and entirely uncharacteristic sob that made the Inquisitors standing with her turn away in disgust. Cora returned the hug, and positioned her ear so that Audrina could whisper into it — why else would she have made such a ridiculous sound?

“Remember meditation class,” she breathed. “Stay calm, stay centered, stay under.”

Cora pulled back, screwing her face up as though weeping too, and nodded tearfully, as though responding to a whispered plea to be brave and face her trial. But what Audrina had said made her feel silly. Of course she didn’t have to choose between drowning and burning — she could pass the Trial of the Depths, and not drown. Why, she’d played the flute for a good decade of her youth — she had lung capacity like nobody’s business. Surely she could manage thirty seconds or a minute underwater. All she had to do was get down there, and stay there.

And what Audrina had said helped a lot too. They’d taken a class together on a whim — something about mindfulness that the hospital was offering as a way of dealing with stress. The class had been nothing remarkable, but the mindful breathing section had actually given both of them a useful insight into controlling breath in response to panic and high pressure environments. The truth was, more of the body could be brought under conscious control than most people thought — and that included breathing and heartbeat. If Cora could keep her wits about her and focus, she could slow her heartbeat and reduce her need for air.

Easier said than done, she thought, giving the surface of the lake a wary look. But at least it was a plan — a lot more than she’d had half an hour ago. Trust Audrina to always have her back, even when she was about to be put to death for witchcraft in medieval Scotland. What were friends for, after all?

Ian and Colin were there too, standing side by side at the edge of a short fishing pier that the locals used to fish in the warmer months. They were both in their MacClaran kilts, and Cora noticed with some amusement that Ian had taken the opportunity to fix his hair up. She had put it into quite a state the night before. Thank God they’d had one last night together — even if she was to drown, at least she’d had a great last night. Don’t think like that, Cora, she scolded herself. No sense in being defeatist.

To her displeasure, Lord Cotswold was there, too. For once, he didn’t seem drunk — if he’d had a drink yet that morning, at least it wasn’t making him sway. He gave her a smug little bow as she approached the pier, and she fought the urge to lunge away from her captor and spit in his beady little eyes. She wished it was him going in the water.

“Disrobe,” the Inquisitor ordered, and Cotswold leered at her.

Was he getting off on this? Disgusting. Cautiously, she removed the blouse she was wearing, and her skirt — small blessings, the man didn’t insist she remove her underclothes as well. Still, she began to shiver in the cold, autumn breeze. The water was going to be a lot worse, though, so she resolved to enjoy the relative warmth while she could.

The guard was tying her hands in front of her — working methodically, he was gentle with her wrists as he looped a length of canvas rope around and through them. Then, he tied a much longer piece through the knot, tethering the other end of that piece to a tree on the shore. The Inquisitor explained that this rope was intended to save her life — if she passed the test by sinking and was shown to be an innocent woman and not a witch, they would quickly haul her back in by the rope attached to her wrists. Yeah, if I don’t have two lungs full of lake water by then, she thought dourly, but she made an effort to smile and nod as though in full support of the test.

The Inquisitor — was it the first or the second? — escorted her down the pier. She didn’t look over her shoulder at her friends — either she’d see them again once this whole trial was over with, or she’d drown. Either way, they knew she loved them. Cora took a deep breath as she looked down at the surface of the black water. Idly, she tested the ropes fixed around her wrist — yep, the guard had definitely tied them tight. She supposed that was good — if she was still alive when they decided to pull her in, she wouldn’t want the ropes to slip from her hands.

The Inquisitor lifted his hands to push her into the water. Cora had never liked being pushed. Taking a deep breath, she bent her knees and sprang into the water, the long length of rope trailing behind her as she crashed through the lake’s surface and into the inky darkness beyond.